I was in the school plays, I did a lot of music. I carried on through university for short films and loads of plays.
When I was in high school, I was writing a lot. I dealt with my high school angst by writing short plays and short films. I was obsessed with reading 'Entertainment Weekly' and 'Premiere' and 'Movieline' and all those magazines.
When I went to film school about three years ago, the first two years you're required to make a series of short films. I started making films based on short poems.
I remember writing monologues and one-act plays and stuff in high school. I had a project in English that was just a short book of limericks. It was so weird. I enjoyed the challenge and rhyme of it. I was always putting on plays and stuff.
But even a kid, directing was something that I did. I made short films in school. I feel like I've been in the best film school in the world.
I started making little short films with friends, and then I decided I wanted to get into the school play in high school.
In India, we always look at feature films as a progression over short films. But, abroad, people make a living making short films. The revenue might not be as much as in feature films, but the return on investment is good.
I made a lot of short films before making a feature film. Actually, I learnt film-making by making short films.
I love TV and I love making films and I love doing plays. I feel very lucky to be able to do all three.
I actually went to film school and was making experimental films for a short time, so it wasn't such a leap.
When I was a kid I would write songs, little plays, and poetry in school. If you're an adult and you're a poet, it's all about love and pain, but if you're a kid it's, "Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?"
I did a severe amount of plays in high school. I was in every single show that my drama club produced. Then in the summer I would do plays, and I was also playing sports. I was probably a hellish kid, come to think of it, for my parents' schedule. But then I went to college in North Carolina.
I love making genre films. It's something I've really been attracted to since I was a kid, mostly because, as a kid, it was forbidden fruit.
You can write when you're dyslexic, you just can't read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.
If I'd loved my chemistry teacher and my maths teacher, goodness knows what direction my life might have gone in. I remember there was a primary school teacher who really woke me up to the joys of school for about one year when I was ten. He made me interested in things I would otherwise not have been interested in - because he was a brilliant teacher. He was instrumental in making me think learning was quite exciting.
I mean I was very shy but I was also very extroverted because I was doing plays. I'd been doing plays since I was a little kid. But, I did feel like an outsider because I went to like a 'college-prep' kind of high school that had a really big football team and was known for its program so I was like this weird boy that did plays.